by JA Huss
What’s not funny is the way Eden is looking at me. She has her hands on her hips and is staring at me, hard. Her glasses are down at the tip of her nose and she’s looking at me over the tops of the rims. She’s breathing a little hard. Not like she’s out of breath, but almost like she’s kind of pissed. And even though millions of people have seen her cupcakes millions of times, I’m trying not to stare at the rising and falling of her chest because she’s Andrew’s lady friend and because I’m classy like that.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell her.
“I’m talking about what exactly you did to my friend, Myrtle. What did you do?”
I look at her. I look at Andrew. In return he looks at me with a combination ‘sorry/what do you want from me’ expression. I close my eyes, take a long inhale, and say, “I did exactly what Andrew told me to do.”
“What?” Andrew leaps forward. “Babe,” he says, “I didn’t. I mean, I did not.”
“He told me to make myself unctuous.”
“What? I never used the word ‘unctuous.’”
“Doesn’t ‘unctuous’ mean ‘servile?’”
“Sort of. It also means ‘oily.’”
“Oh. Well, it’s possible I’m going to wind up being that too.”
“Shut! Up!” I’ve never heard Eden yell before. Just like everything about her, it comes across as kind of sweet. But I don’t tell her that. I just shut up, as she demands. “Start over,” she says. “Explain what the hell happened.”
And so I do.
I tell them both about the fact that I can’t seem to get over Myrtle’s continuing resentment towards me. I tell them about the fact that, unlike usual, I can’t just seem to let it go and move on. I tell them that I told Myrtle that I’d do what I had to to make it right between us. I explain about the contract and the whole Fifty Shades stuff. (I leave out the part where somehow I have gotten nicknamed Anastasia.) I tell them about the house and the dungeon and the tiger and the stuff that Myrtle did to me. And the stuff she didn’t do. I tell them that in return for letting Myrtle dominate me, she’s coming to Vail with me for the weekend.
And when I’m done telling them everything, I once again flop into a chair and pop my cufflinks. Again, because it’s super cool.
Eden looks at me, looks at Andrew, and then back at me. And says, “You have got to be the stupidest smart person I have ever met.”
“I… Thanks?”
“Jesus,” she says, coming to sit in the chair beside me. “Why are you doing this to her?”
“Me? Doing…? What? What are you talking about? What am I doing? She’s the one doing things. I’m the one getting drooled on by tigers and shit.”
Andrew rounds his desk and sits on the edge, facing me as well. “She’s right, man. I’m not sure you should be playing this game.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Man, c’mon. She could sue you, or—”
“Oh. My. God!” That’s Eden again. “No wonder you two are best friends. Oblivious geniuses are so out of fashion, you guys. C’mon! Get it together!”
Both of us look at her, obliviously. Like the geniuses we are.
“Honey,” Andrew says, “What’re you—?”
“Myrtle is in love with you, Pierce! She has been for a long time! And you making her do this… this… thing with you, it’s mean. It’s some kind of weird power game. And it’s mean.”
“OK,” I say, slowly. “First of all, she’s not in love with me. I don’t know if Myrtle’s the kind of person who falls in love. And regardless, she kind of hates me these days.”
“Yeah, dummy! Because she’s in love with you and you hurt her. Are you really that self-involved that you can’t get that?”
Shit. I’m not sure I heard what Eden just asked. I was thinking about Myrtle’s crotch on top of my crotch last night. “What?”
She huffs. “Love and hate are sides of a coin, Pierce. Yeah, she hates you because of what you did to her. But that’s only because she loved you. Probably still does.”
“There’s no—”
“And you love her.”
Whoa. What? Wait a minute.
“Whoa! What? Wait a minute,” I say.
“C’mon, you totally do. I mean, it’s been obvious since the first day I started work at Le Man.”
“Obvious how?” I ask.
“Like, uh, you would pay attention to her? You’d say nice things to her? You remembered her name.” I look at Andrew, who raises his eyebrows. “I mean,” she goes on, “on anybody else, stuff like that would just be basic courtesy, but coming from you? You might as well have been freakin’ proposing to her.”
I can feel that my mouth is a tiny bit agape, but I can’t seem to find the resolve to close it. So, after a moment, I just stand up. “That’s ridiculous,” I say, popping my cuffs and adjusting the knot in my tie. “Absurd. Don’t you have some dirty videos to make or something?”
“Don’t be a dick just because you don’t wanna face the fact that I’m right,” she says.
“Hey,” I tell her, “I don’t need a reason to be a dick,” and I start to leave.
I’m just about at the door when I hear, “Pierce?”
I turn back to see the two of them standing side by side. A unified front. A team. I mean, she’s clearly the captain, but still… a team.
“Yeah?” I say.
“Myrtle’s a really, really good person. She has the exterior she has, but underneath it, she’s… she’s soft. Just, whatever it is that you think you’re going to get out of this, don’t puncture her again. OK? I don’t think she’ll stick around if you hurt her again.”
Yeah. No shit.
“Don’t worry, mes amis,” I tell them with a wink as I open the door. “I got this.”
I so totally do not got this.
Is it possible that Eden is right? Could Myrtle have an actual thing for me? Could I have a thing for her? That’s crazy talk. Yeah? I mean, I know what I feel about things. Don’t I?
Don’t I?
To be fair, last night I learned more about myself than I’ve learned in probably a dozen years, so…
But no. There’s no way Myrtle could’ve had a thing for me—like, a real thing—and I wouldn’t have noticed. I mean, it’s not possible.
Is it?
Is it possible that I’m really that blind to shit going on around me?
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you coming,” I say to Valerie as I bump into her in the hallway next to my office.
“Oh, no, sir, that’s all right. I’m sorry. My fault.” I wish she wouldn’t do that. It wasn’t her fault. If I had accidentally bumped into Myrtle like that, she would’ve said something like, ‘That’s OK, I love being manhandled.’ Or something equally disconcerting and probably needing to be reported to HR. “I was just coming to find you,” Valerie continues. “Ms. Rothschild is waiting for you in your office.”
“She is?” Valerie nods. “OK. Great. I’ll, uh…” And then I kind of lose myself for a second.
Valerie’s voice brings me back. “Sir?”
“Uh, yeah. Great. Thanks, Val.” She smiles and nods, and heads off. I look up at the ceiling for reasons passing understanding, and then continue on into my office where I do, indeed, find Myrtle waiting. She’s once again sitting behind my desk, legs crossed. She’s eating a Twizzler. Jesus fuckin’—
“Help you with something?” I ask.
“I need to push your time to eight tonight.”
“My time?”
“Your expected arrival time. I need to push to eight o’clock. That is if you’re still planning on showing up.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be there. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
She eyes me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I nod. She rolls her tongue around her Twizzler and then bites it, aggressively.
“Good,” she says.
“Good.”
“OK.”
&
nbsp; “OK.”
“So,” she says, standing. “I’ll see you then.”
“Believe it.”
She crosses to stand directly in front of me, takes another bite of her Twizzler, and chews in my face. I tilt my head, watch her, and try as hard as I can not to blink first.
“See ya,” she finally says, as she brushes past me and the smell of her that I caught last night finds its way into my nostrils again.
Just as she’s almost at the door, unexpectedly and out of impulse, I say, “Myrtle…?”
She turns, one eyebrow lifted, Twizzler… twizzling… in her mouth, and says, “Hm?”
I squint. I don’t know why. It’s not like I can’t see her. But I don’t know if I actually do.
“Yes?” she says. “What? What is it?” The question is freighted. There’s a low-level anxiety inside the asking. Like maybe she’s not sure if I’m just going to pull the plug right here and now. Or fire her after all. Or…
“Can I bring anything?” I ask. I immediately regret the lameness of the question, but it was the best cover I could come up with when I decided that I didn’t want to ask any of the more real questions I have swimming around in my head.
She looks puzzled for a moment and then she shoves the last bit of Twizzler in her mouth, and as she chews it, she says, “See ya at eight.”
Damn.
Suddenly I really want a Twizzler.
That’s probably something we could work into tonight.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - MYRTLE
When I round the corner to my office, Eden is waiting for me. “Did we have a meeting?” I ask. My phone begins to ring.
“Um… no,” she says. “I just need to talk to you about something.” Then she stares at my ringing phone. “You can get that. I’ll wait.”
“It can’t be anything important,” I say. “I don’t actually do anything here.” Then I chuckle under my breath. Last night was weird at the end. Hell, who am I kidding? The whole thing was weird. But the end. I dunno. I felt kinda… off. A little bit sad. I’ve been thinking about it all morning but I can’t place my finger on the precise thing that bothers me.
I sit down at my desk, punch the blinking light on the phone, and say, “Ms. Rothschild, how may I help you?”
“Myrtle, it’s Pearl. From the community center?”
“Yes,” I say, picking up the handset to take it off speakerphone. I smile at Eden and hold up one finger. “What can I do for you, Pearl?”
“Well, I’m just really anxious to get your class on the calendar. We’re in such a time crunch, you know?”
“Are we?” I ask. Eden is squinting her eyes at me in a weird way. It’s distracting.
“Yes, the election is coming up. And we need to make a big impression.”
“Ooooooh. Yes. I remember.”
“So can we maybe meet for lunch today?”
“Lunch today, well—” And I’m just about to say OK, but Eden is shaking her head, mouthing the words, No. I’m taking you to lunch today. “I can’t do lunch, I’m sorry.”
“Oh. OK, how about dinner?”
“Ooooh,” I say, my lips making a tiny ‘o.’ “Well, tonight is not good either. I have… things I need to prepare for.”
“Tomorrow?” she asks, her voice filled with hope.
“This week is just tight, Pearl. I don’t think I can do it. How about Monday? Can we do Monday?”
“Monday…” She is clearly unhappy about Monday. “OK. I guess. I mean, I know you’re really busy and I’m so, so, so appreciative that you’re doing this, so yes.” She has talked herself into Monday. “Do you want to meet at the restaurant?”
“Sounds perfect,” I say. “I’ll see you at noon!” I place the handset back down before Pearl can object because now I’m positive Eden is looking at me weirdly. “What?” I say. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
She turns, closes my door, and then takes a deep breath. “Did you… and Pierce… do anything interesting last night?”
“He told you?”
“Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. I walked in on him telling Andrew.”
I smile a classic Mistress Myrtle smile. “Why, yes. We did have a fascinating evening.”
“What are you doing? Are you crazy?”
“I might be. But I don’t care anymore, Eden. I mean. This place”—I wave my hand around to indicate my office, but it’s not my office. It’s the whole magazine—“I don’t want to stay here. So hell, why not go out teaching Pierce a lesson, right?”
“No,” she says.
“No what?”
“You’re not quitting. You can’t quit on Pierce. That’s just so… so wrong.”
“It’s actually not,” I say, leaning back in my expensive leather chair to cross my legs. “I have no duties here. I have no purpose.”
“Your purpose is the same as it always was.”
“Wholly untrue. I don’t even have a job description. How can I run a social media department when you, the only person we had in social media, left?”
“I’m still here. And you’re still in charge of me. We’re planning a really big event at the moment. You have purpose!”
“So what?” I scoff. “The party is just a façade. The whole position is just a façade. It has no meaning at all.”
“You told me that the magazine is in trouble. That Pierce is counting on this December spread to raise two million dollars in advertising.”
“Right. There’s that. And I’m sure the photographs we get from the party will be super interesting. But I’m not in charge of advertising, Josh is. He’s taking care of it. I’m in charge of decorations, Eden. How does that give me purpose?”
“It’s… gonna be… social and we’re gonna… media the fuck out of it!” She stammers out that entire ridiculous sentence.
But I don’t laugh at her. Because Eden is sweet and she’s trying hard. “You don’t get it,” I say.
“I do get it! You feel adrift. And it’s because your job used to be supporting Pierce and now you feel like Valerie has taken your place.”
“Valerie,” I sneer. “She could work here a hundred years and never replace me.”
“Exactly!”
“Exactly,” I agree. “And yet there she is. Sitting at my desk outside Pierce’s office.”
“You have this desk now. And this office and—”
“Eden,” I say, holding up my hand to make her stop. “I’m done here, OK? There’s nothing you can say or do to change my mind.”
“So why are you and Pierce playing this little sex game then, huh?”
“So I can humiliate him the way he humiliated me, and then walk out.”
She purses her lips and shakes her head. “You’re as cliché as the romance novels you hide in your desk drawer, Myrtle.”
I laugh. “Obviously you and I don’t read the same books. My story is not cliché and neither is my smut.”
“You’re pretending you don’t love him when you do.”
“Bullshit. Love? Please. I do not love that man. I admire him. I respect him. Or I did. Before—”
“Jesus, just let it go! He made a mistake, so what?”
“A mistake?” I say, standing up. “It wasn’t just a mistake. A mistake is something done by accident. He planned that morning, Eden. Planned it.”
“Believe me,” she says. “I know that better than anyone because my boyfriend helped. He planned it to humiliate me, not you.”
“And yet…” I say, pausing because I’m about to say something I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, but I want to. And sometimes ‘I want’ wins. “And yet you do not have a job cobbled together to make you feel important when you’re clearly not. You have a new business. You have clients. You have a whole future in front of you. You won, Eden. You got everything you wanted. I didn’t. I lost everything that was important to me here at Le Man.”
“So tell him! Just tell him that!”
“I’ve tried,” I say, sitting back down in my chair. �
��I have. But he’s not listening to me. He still thinks moving me into this office and throwing money and perks at me is the answer. And I can’t do it anymore, OK? I can’t. I’m done. I’m going to see this little game through to the end and next week I’ll be gone. That’s the only outcome that makes sense to me.”
“Well… well, then you’re stupid.”
I lift an eyebrow up at her.
“You are. Because he loves you and you love him and—”
“Whoa.” I laugh. “He does not love me. He doesn’t even miss me! He thinks Valerie is my replacement! Just what the fuck is that, Eden? It’s so insulting!”
“You’re just misunderstanding his intentions!”
I sigh. “OK, listen. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and agree that maybe this office and these new perks are his way of making it up to me. Maybe they are genuine.” She smiles. “But only as a hypothetical so you’ll hear me out. Because my perception of this situation makes sense. OK? It does. So one,” I say, holding up a finger. “We were a team. A team, Eden. The perfect team. We were synced up, and in tune, and on the same page. I was part of him, and he was part of me, and it was perfect. And then suddenly, out of nowhere and through no fault of my own, we… weren’t.”
“I understand that, but—”
“Two,” I say, ticking off another finger. “He didn’t even consult me. He never once asked me if I was the Sexpert. Not once. And I have always been honest and upfront with him. Always. And I thought he was being honest and upfront with me too. There was trust there, Eden. And he threw that away like it was last week’s garbage.”
“I get it, but—”
“And three,” I say, holding up my last finger. “He hired Valerie.”
She just stares at me. Like there’s more to that.
But there isn’t.
Valerie.
“She’s not out to replace you, Myrtle.”
“I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice woman. I’m sure she’s competent in her own way. But Valerie, Eden? Just what the everloving fuck was he thinking? Is that how he saw me? As just another Valerie?”
She frowns. Because now she gets it.
“She’s… she’s…” But this, I think, is the reason I’m sad. “She’s so… ordinary. She is the epitome of every other executive assistant out there. Is that all I was here? Was that all I was to him? A Valerie?”